[E100] Closing Week: Ending Season One of TSEP

When I started The Sales Experience Podcast, my personal goal was to record 100 episodes before deciding if I wanted to continue.

I have loved doing the show. If you are a long time listener or you go back to the early shows, as with anything, I have enjoyed improving the show and myself during all these episodes.

I had some amazing guests on the show and had a ton of fun nerding out on Sales stuff.

In this episode I recap most of the topics from the show over the first 100 episodes – this is a great one to listen to if you are new to TSEP, as it will be a guide for what show to listen to next. If you are one of the loyal long-time listeners, then this show is a great reminder of what I covered so you can go back and listen to the ones that might help you wherever you are at right this moment in your sales career.

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded one or 100+ episodes. I appreciate all of you.

Make sure to subscribe so that when Season Two starts, you will stay up to date.

And if you have any suggestions, ideas, or topics for the next season, make sure to reach out to me. Would love to hear your feedback and thoughts.

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Episode 100 – Transcript

Welcome to the sales experience podcast. Welcome to episode 100 of the show. Now this episode is going to be a little bit different in that this isn’t about closing techniques, it isn’t about sales techniques, isn’t about strategies, it’s kind of a summary wrap up episode. So if you’re looking for specific sales-related tips, may or may not find them in here.

However, I’m going to go through some of my favorite topics and kind of point you in the direction in case this is the first time you’re listening. Maybe you’re scrolling through podcasts and you’re thinking, oh, here’s a show that’s actually done a hundred episodes. Maybe I’ll listen to it. This one here, I’m going to point you in directions. If you’ve been listening to the show for all a hundred episodes, which I’m super happy cause I know there’s some of you that do, I can see how many people have subscribed and how many episodes are downloaded every single time.

And if that’s you, I appreciate it. So this might be a summary, recap, a refresh, go back, listen to some of those episodes that might be effective for you right now in your sales career. But first off, thank you for listening to this. If you’re listening to this show, whether it’s right now when it’s being recorded and posted in August 2019 that’s great. I appreciate that.

Thank you so much for doing that because hopefully that means you’re interested and dedicated to a sales experience that’s positive for you as well as your prospect. So again, this isn’t all about how do I get you to be more effective so that you can sell more, make more money, turn more prospects into customers. Yes, that is part of it, but it’s also for you, the salesperson or you, the sales manager, building a team. How can I help you with a sales experience that you’re happy to provide, that you’re proud of what you do, that you become and view yourself as a sales professional as a great career and a way that you’re helping people and all of this to overcome the stigma, which is my goal.

Overcome that stigma of what a salesperson means to most of the world and how most people do not view that as a good thing. A lot of salespeople are embarrassed to call themselves salespeople because they know it has such a negative connotation. And so that’s why I did this show. And so I appreciate everyone who downloads a single episode because that means there’s some hope that your trying to build the right sales experience, you’re trying to do the right thing. You’re trying to make sure that you’re providing the right experience for you and your prospects and make the world a better place in what you’re doing. So I appreciate that.

Now, this is episode 100 of the ones that I’ve recorded and however, technically there’s over a hundred with the guest episodes and all of the bonus ones that I put in there, but for me, the way that I am, I wanted to just keep the episodes that I do myself as the ones in order, and this is episode 100 now, in the very beginning of the show, I talked about mindset.

There was one week, it was actually week two episodes six through 10 where I talked about mindset. I talked about being open, willing, also watching film was a big episode and I had guest episode with Richard Smith that week and we talked about watching film like they do in sports. So watching and listening to your sales interactions after the fact, keeping in mind everyone hates hearing themselves. Talk on a recording. Everyone’s the same way. I’m the same way. Most everybody feels that way. However, if you can get past that part, yeah, listen to your calls, listen for the feedback, get feedback from your manager with the goal of improving and being better and better whenever possible. I also did a week of sales mindset in particular, which was episode 61 through 65 where I talked specifically about sales specifically focused on a positive sales mindset, so make sure you check out those episodes in that week because that was a huge one for a lot of people I know who are in sales and struggle with things like rejection, trying to stay focused, winning other people on the team who are trying to drag them down, the mediocre people.

I talked about sheep and crabs. Make sure to check out that episode number 64 where I went into that, and then just really building your sales success mindset. That’s so key. Then in weeks three and four episodes 11 through 20 I talked about the fundamentals, and I’ve mentioned this a lot in the last couple of weeks as well, but how to go through the stages that you can apply to any sales process. Again, whether it’s B2C or B2B, whether it’s in person, it’s over the phone, a product or service doesn’t matter.

There’s some fundamentals that I have found over the years that should be applied to every sales process no matter what and you should have them in there. The order is very important as well and I covered them. But to summarize, you want to make sure that you build a rapport and then you have empathy, then trust and then hope and then urgency so that there’s some plan to move forward now and to take action.

Now you’ve got to do those in that order. If you start out with urgency before you have rapport before empathy, trust, or hope, then you’re just that pushy salesperson and you’re going to repel people, right? If you go straight into hope, there’s no basis of it and it sounds like this weird false hopes. You want to make sure you do all of those in order and then apply that to it so you don’t have to do it exactly right the way that I would say it, because your product or service, your personality, the way you do it, whatever your company has given you as the sales process and tools is going to be different. And so just take that and apply it so when you’re building rapport, build rapport in the right way, doing it with the right focus, and then when you’re getting to a point where you’re offering a solution, that’s when the hope stage comes in and you should be able to give them a feeling of where they are going to be, whether they’re you’re solving their pain or you’re helping them achieve a goal, whatever that is, should be a hope and they should be excited about what you’re offering.

Then I talked about referrals, so week five where it was episodes 21 through 25 that was all about referrals. I had a great episode with Jamie von back on there and that whole week was talking about referrals, which is tough for a lot of salespeople because a lot of salespeople are just so short minded. They’re thinking about today if they’re hunting for it today and they’re not planting seeds to farm for tomorrow. So if that’s you and you’re not generating a lot of referrals for yourself and for your business as a professional, make sure to listen to those episodes and get into that framework where you’re closing for today.

You’ve got to eat for today, you’ve got to hunt for today, but then you’re also turning every single interaction into a seed you’re planting and then you’re nurturing for referrals down the road so that at some point that scale tips needing to go out and hunt for today and waking up and knowing that you’re in a desperate mode every single day.

Two, waking up and knowing that you have something you can farm that’s right outside your door. And then if you also hunt, then that’s a bonus. So that wasn’t very important. We’d make sure you listen to those referral episodes. Again, episodes 21 through 25 I had a week where I talked about scripting and how to build a script. So if you’re a sales manager or a sales leader and you’re looking at what can I do to build the right script? There was some strategies. I talked about episodes 26 through 30 and then I talked about personalities. This was a huge week and I tried to do my best during episodes 31 through 42 put in as much as I could from what I generally teach in a four to six-hour seminar and session and then also reinforced with salespeople in person. I tried to put it in 10 episodes, which maybe I was pretty successful in it.

I covered as much as I could, but obviously that’s the reader’s digest version and I couldn’t put as much information in there as I would love to do.

If you’re interested in that, listen to those. If you want more information, more help about personalities or how to sell from a personality based system, which also includes not selling the way you want to buy, but selling how your prospect wants to buy, make sure to reach out to me, go to CutterConsultingGroup.com use the contact page or find my email on there. Send me an email. Let’s set up a time to talk. Let me help you or your team with this. Give you any strategy advice. We can do workshops they go, there’s all kinds of options. Make sure to reach out to me. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Just search Jason Cutter on there and you’ll find me.

Then on the show here, I went through many, many weeks where I answered questions. If you have any ideas, any questions for sales that you’ve had that’s burning inside of you, go through those episodes. There’s a good chance I covered it. I answered some things in there which may have helped. Then to wrap this episode up, I also had telesales week, so if you’re in a telephone sales-based position, episode 66 through 70 I went through and talked about telephone sales specific strategies, things to help you with creating your sales experience over the phone in telephone sales specifically. Then I had a recruiting week where I talked to episode 71 through 75 if you’re in a position where you’re recruiting or hiring or needing to build a sales team, make sure to listen to that. Hopefully some pointers and tips to add to what you’re already doing.

Again, nothing in the show, nothing in the sales experience is meant to replace what you’re doing or what your company has provided or the structure of systems that your company has. These are general tips. This my best attempt to give you general advice and not specific game changing advice to alter what your company is requiring you to do or how your structure is built. Now, if you want some specific company advice, reach out to me. Go to the website, find me on LinkedIn, you know, send me an email, let’s get on a call and then we can talk about some specific company targeted strategies and what you can do to change your company, whatever that process is, whether it’s a script, recruiting, management, whatever that looks like. Then let’s get on a phone call and I can give you some specifics and we can talk about specifics that fit in there and of course when we jump on that call, be fully prepared.

I’m going to ask you a lot of questions. If you haven’t figured that out about me by now is my first approach is going to be asking lots of questions. Figuring out what you’re looking for, what you’re struggling with, and then I can give you some advice and help you with what I can. Last week I talked about sales tax, so if you’re in a position within your company where you’re in charge of the technology, whether you’re a manager or an owner, listen to those episodes. 91 through 95 I talked about some things, great technology that you can use with the fundamental purpose of filling in around your sales reps everything that you can so that they can be laser focused on just what they want to do, which is conversations with prospects, moving them towards closing the point of sales technologies should be, do enable them to focus on what they do best and fill in as many gaps as possible.

And then this week has been all about closing and as I wrap up this episode, episode 100 which is funny that it happens to be the end of closing week and it’s episode 100 I have an announcement to make which is that I am wrapping up the sales experience podcast for now, so don’t worry, I haven’t given up on it.

My initial goal was to do a hundred episodes and I had them planned out. I made some adjustments along the way. I got some feedback, I did some fun things, I talked to some great people and what I’ve decided to do is I am going to take a break from the show, so at a hundred episodes where I’m at right now, I am considering this the end of season one of the sales experience podcast, a lot of shows, TV shows, movies, they all have some kind of ending. They take a break, they retool, they record new ones, they come back for a different season and they give you more content, different content, you know, more storylines and that’s my goal with this instead of being a podcast.

Yeah. Where it’s just ongoing. I want to take a break. I want to step back. I’m going to do some retooling with this different approach. The fundamentals will, we’ll study the same. My goal will always be to help you as a salesperson produce the best, greatest, most effective, most satisfying, most professional sales experience you can for yourself and for your prospects, but as of right now, that’s going to end season one.

This wraps up episode 100 please make sure to subscribe though, because when I turn this back on and I hit the ground running, then these new episodes will start flying out. You want to make sure that you get them right and you have them as soon as they restart. I’ll be posting it online. I’ll be sending it out. If you want more information, you can always hit me up @ www.cutterconsultinggroup.com you can go to LinkedIn.

You can find these shows everywhere that podcasts are available and that’s it for episode 100 thank you everybody who’s been listening, whether it’s one episode or all 110 with the guest episodes. Yeah. I appreciate all of you. So very much.

And as always, remember that everything in life is sales, right? And people remember the experience you gave them.